Tag: gold

  I was scanning the news today when I came across an article that caused me to say, “Damn! I’m going to be right again.”

 WASHINGTON — Debt ceiling negotiators think they’ve hit on a solution to address the debt ceiling impasse and the public’s unwillingness to let go of benefits such as Medicare and Social Security that have been earned over a lifetime of work: Create a new Congress…

  Legislation approved by the Super Congress — which some on Capitol Hill are calling the “super committee” — would then be fast-tracked through both chambers, where it couldn’t be amended by simple, regular lawmakers, who’d have the ability only to cast an up or down vote. With the weight of both leaderships behind it, a product originated by the Super Congress would have a strong chance of moving through the little Congress and quickly becoming law. A Super Congress would be less accountable than the system that exists today, and would find it easier to strip the public of popular benefits. Negotiators are currently considering cutting the mortgage deduction and tax credits for retirement savings, for instance, extremely popular policies that would be difficult to slice up using the traditional legislative process.

 I will let others address the Constitutionality of this new legislative body, and instead focus on a target of the budget cutting – retirement savings.

This is the companion piece to the one about gold from Friday night in Popular Culture.  Obviously, we intend to get geekier tonight than we did Friday.  Then we talked about gold being used primarily as money or other symbols of wealth.

Tonight we will discuss how gold is mined and purified, and the actual industrial uses for it as opposed to jewelry and investment purposes.  The old picture that most folks have about the forty-niner with his gold pan is far from how gold is mined, and was not really very accurate even then, being mostly a product of Hollywood.

This is designed to be a companion piece to a new Pique the Geek installment of the same title that will be published Sunday.  The idea for this dual treatment of gold was inspired by our good friend and supporter from the other two sites to which I contribute, ek hornbeck.

This half of the couple has to do with gold in a nontechnical sense.  The one on Sunday gets, obviously, much more Geeky.  However, technical uses aside, gold has been part of the popular culture since prehistory.  Only recently have truly technical uses for gold been found, and those will be covered elsewhere.

Tonight we shall look at some of the history of gold in popular culture, and finish with a discussion of the so-called gold standard and the numerous sales pitches that dominate the conservative airwaves.  We shall try not to get too Geeky.

  Executives from Glen Beck’s favorite gold company, Goldline, testified in front Congress yesterday. Rep. Anthony Weiner showed no mercy.

 “We’re talking about a classic consumer issue,” Weiner said at a House subcommittee hearing. “The television gold industry, led by [Goldline], is built on lies, fear and rip-offs.”

 While Weiner has a point, at least when it comes to Goldline being a predator, one has to wonder why Congress doesn’t share that level of outrage for the infinitely larger problem of payday loan predators? Is it because Goldline doesn’t have the lobbying power of the entire banking industry? Or because Beck endorses Goldline, thus making it a partisan hearing?

 On the very same day of the hearings there was another headline in the markets.

 Gold prices traded in record territory again Thursday as inflation-wary investors bid prices up near the psychologically important threshold of $1,300 an ounce.

  Gold prices gained $4.20 to settle a record $1,296.30 an ounce, building on gains it made after the Federal Reserve announced Tuesday it might take further steps to stimulate the economy. …

  Gold prices have nearly doubled since 2008, when an economic panic shook global credit markets and central banks responded by flooding currency markets. Since then, global economic uncertainty and inflation fears have spurred investors to shift money from stocks and cash into gold.

 The simple fact is that while Goldline might be stoking the hype and fear, people would be rushing into gold even if Goldline didn’t exist. The reason isn’t because of lies and rip-offs. The reasons are based on sound historical facts.

  Executives from Glen Beck’s favorite gold company, Goldline, testified in front Congress yesterday. Rep. Anthony Weiner showed no mercy.

 “We’re talking about a classic consumer issue,” Weiner said at a House subcommittee hearing. “The television gold industry, led by [Goldline], is built on lies, fear and rip-offs.”

 While Weiner has a point, at least when it comes to Goldline being a predator, one has to wonder why Congress doesn’t share that level of outrage for the infinitely larger problem of payday loan predators? Is it because Goldline doesn’t have the lobbying power of the entire banking industry? Or because Beck endorses Goldline, thus making it a partisan hearing?

 On the very same day of the hearings there was another headline in the markets.

 Gold prices traded in record territory again Thursday as inflation-wary investors bid prices up near the psychologically important threshold of $1,300 an ounce.

  Gold prices gained $4.20 to settle a record $1,296.30 an ounce, building on gains it made after the Federal Reserve announced Tuesday it might take further steps to stimulate the economy. …

  Gold prices have nearly doubled since 2008, when an economic panic shook global credit markets and central banks responded by flooding currency markets. Since then, global economic uncertainty and inflation fears have spurred investors to shift money from stocks and cash into gold.

 The simple fact is that while Goldline might be stoking the hype and fear, people would be rushing into gold even if Goldline didn’t exist. The reason isn’t because of lies and rip-offs. The reasons are based on sound historical facts.

In the most recent week it was divulged by the WSJ that the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) official gold holding have tripled! Where did all this gold come from and why is it suddenly moving around remains a mystery.

Why should care? Because gold is being recognized as the worlds only real money once again and colored paper is being called into question … even by banks.

However yesterday the official denial arrived in the WSJ when they reported this:

“The operations concerned were purely market operations with commercial banks,” the BIS said in an email statement.

  The price of gold surpassed its 2009 peak today, hitting an all-time record high of $1,232.50 an ounce. The reason for this is quite simple – Europe is printing nearly $1 Trillion dollar to stem their financial crisis and the markets think all that money will be wasted.

  This is leading people to blasphemous conclusions.

 “People are in panic mode,” said Matt Zeman, a metals trader at LaSalle Futures Group in Chicago. “There is absolute panic over the risk of contagion spreading to other countries in Europe. Yields on Treasuries are so low, people are starting to look to gold as an alternative.”

  “This is the beginning of the unraveling of fiat currencies,” said Michael Pento, the chief economist at Delta Global Advisors Inc. in Huntington Beach, California. “Money has to be backed by something. People are beginning to realize that gold is the world’s reserve currency.”

  “When the sovereign-debt crisis laps onto our shores, there will be a global realization that gold, not the dollar, is the world’s reserve currency,” Pento of Global Advisors said.

  Fraud traditionally occurs behind closed doors. The larger the fraud, the more chances of its existence leaking out to the public. Only after the scheme has blown up does the media report it.

   Fraud has a short lifespan once it is subject to the harsh rays of sunlight. It is only a matter of time before the lies on which it is built come crumbling down.

 Last week a massive case of fraud was exposed to the light, but because it hasn’t imploded yet the mainstream news media isn’t reporting it. In fact, the media seems to want to ignore the facts.

  Why? Not because they question the facts, but simply because of the subject of the fraud – precious metals.

Perhaps you’ve heard of the movie “The Money Masters” before by Bill Still. But regardless, it is well known that our U.S. Economy is not really getting better — nor will it ever get better.

How could it? That is, until and unless we solve our astronomical debt problem, and stop borrowing money at interest, just to pay off the never ending massive pile of interest from our old debts — all of which can never go away under our existing system because the very creation of money itself is also debt generating ( as the crooked Federal Reserve System was designed [Rothschilds, Rockefellers, Morgans]).

Some people, namely Ron Paul, have talked about a return to a Gold & Silver based monetary system.  But this solution, while constructive for discussion, would appear to be incomplete. For we see even today that the price of Gold and Silver are greatly manipulated in a corrupt manner by the various Central Banks, the IMF, and various Governments. Therefore, how could either Gold or Silver possibly offer any stability when it is itself under the domination and control of “The Money Masters“?  For example, given that size of the U.S. Money Supply has quadrupled in just the last few years alone, it would then logically follow that the correct price of Gold relative to the watered-down U.S. Dollar should already be in the vicinity of $5000/OZ.

  I don’t believe there is any investment, outside of a mania, that elicits more emotion, both positive and negative, than gold. People love it or hate it, there isn’t much in between. It’s because of these strong emotions that there is so many misconceptions about the yellow metal. Emotions tend to cloud normally reasonable minds to the point that they miss either opportunities or dangers.

 Which brings us the current bull market in gold. What does gold hitting all-time record highs mean? To answer that you must brush away the myths and misunderstandings of what gold is and why someone would purchase it.

 I am going to attempt to do that.